ROSACES 389 



!). Malus fusca Schn. Crab Apple. 

 Malus rivularis Roem. 



Leaves ovate to elliptic or lanceolate, acute or acuminate, cuneate or rounded at base, 

 sharply serrate with appressed glandular teeth, and often slightly 3-lobed, when they un- 

 fold pubescent on the lower and puberulous on the upper surface, at maturity thick and 

 firm, dark green and glabrous above, pale and pubescent or glabrous below, l'-4' long, 

 f '-If wide, with a prominent midrib and primary veins and conspicuous reticulate vein- 

 lets; before falling in the autumn turning bright orange and scarlet; petioles stout, rigid, 





Fig. 346 



pubescent, I'-l?' in length; stipules narrowly lanceolate, acute, '-$' long; leaves at the 

 end of vigorous shoots ovate to obovate, acuminate, often 3-lobed above the middle, 

 rounded or cuneate at base, 2|'-3^' long and wide, with petioles often 2' in length. Flowers 

 f ' in diameter on slender pubescent or glabrous pedicels, ^'-f ' long, in short many-flowered 

 clusters; calyx-tube deciduous from the mature fruit, glabrous, puberulous or tomentose, 

 the lobes rather longer than the tube, minutely apiculate, glabrous or tomentose, hoary- 

 tomentose on the inner surface; petals orbicular to obovate, erose or undulate on the mar- 

 gins, abruptly contracted into a short claw, j' wide, white or rose color; styles 2-4, glabrous. 

 Fruit obovoid-oblong, |'-f ' long, yellow-green, light yellow flushed with red or sometimes 

 nearly red; flesh thin and dry. 



A tree, 30-40 high, with a trunk 12'-18' in diameter, and slender branchlets coated at 

 first with long pale hairs soon deciduous or persistent until the autumn, becoming bright 

 red and lustrous, and later dark brown, and marked by minute remote pale lenticels; often 

 a shrub with numerous slender stems. Winter-buds iV long, chestnut-brown, the inner 

 scales at maturity lanceolate, usually bright red, and nearly \' in length. Bark \' thick, 

 and covered by large thin loose light red-brown plate-like scales. Wood heavy, hard, 

 close-grained, light brown tinged with red, with lighter colored sapwood of 20-30 layers 

 of annual growth; used for mallets, mauls, the handles of tools, and the bearings of ma- 

 chinery. The fruit has a pleasant subacid flavor. 



Distribution. Deep rich soil in the neighborhood of streams, often forming almost im- 

 penetrable thickets of considerable extent; Aleutian Islands southward along the coast and 

 islands of Alaska and British Columbia to Sonoma and Plumas Counties, California; of its 

 largest size in the valleys of western Washington and Oregon. 



Occasionally cultivated as an ornamental plant in the eastern states, and in western Europe. 



X Malus Dawsoniana Rehd., a hybrid of Malus fusca and a form of M. pumila, has been 

 raised at the Arnold Arboretum from seeds collected in Oregon. 



